The not-so retirement of the Master of Death
by whenthemarshmallowmettheslayer
Summary: Harry has know abuse, death (not death with a capital d that wore the faces of its victims but death with a lower case d) and war in so much of his young (but not young) life. Sometimes it's nice to have peace; to cook, play with Ariana and her goats and, you know, adopt a mass murderer that had killed his parents.


A/N: Originally posted on ao3 under the pen name youngjusticewriter. Part seven of the "The advantages of foreknowledge and the disadvantages." series.

Originally author's note: I have written two other drabbles but they don't get posted till I finish book one of "The Disadvantages" because of spoilers.

The other title idea for this story was "Goats and Cooking."

* * *

It's starts like this: the aroma of chocolate chip cookies.

Harry likes cooking (sans bacon that is) or rather muggle cooking. It's simple. Follow the instructions and you get exactly what you want. Cooking instructions are the only rules Harry has ever faithfully followed.

One (or this case Death, with a capital d and wearing the face of two year old boy with dark skin and a mess of black hair that bears no scar on his corpse - despite being non-binary never let it be said Death can't be a bitch) would think Harry would hate cooking since it was something the Dursleys often made him do despite being too young. That's only somewhat true. Harry hates cooking bacon the very thought of cooking it makes Harry wince. (How many times had the oil popped onto his skin and burnt him? How many times had his aunt not notice much less cared?) Everything else was fine, comforting even.

Harry took out the first batch of cookies from the oven and Death just grabbed one of them without asking or waiting for them to cool down. It's isn't because Harry was Death's Master but, rather, it is simply chocolate chip cookies; enough said. Said chocolate chip cookies manage to lure Tom from his studying. Which unto itself is more miraculous than having Death eat your chocolate chips considering how studious the youngest Evans could be.

"I'm not stupid," Tom declares instead of saying hello and his father just blinks.

"I never thought you were," Harry tells Tom. His father looks completely innocent but Evans were never innocent no matter how much they might look it.

Tom however didn't reply, he was momentarily distracted as he eyed the cookies on the pan. One was obviously missing from the batch that was still cooling down. It wasn't like Harry to just snatch one and eat it since his father had often told everyone but Ariana off for doing the exact same thing.

"Albus isn't an idiot," Tom begrudgingly admitted and Harry could save Ariana, save baby Voldemort from the orphanage, and kill Grindlewald but Albus and Tom still despised each other. Really, it's says something about Harry's life that he isn't surprised. "Which means he knows and probably Aberforth as well."

"Oh. What do they know?" Harry asked as he walked over to the cabinet next to the sink so he could grab a plate.

"Wizards age slowly but you-" Tom pauses and on his face there's a look of utter respect on his face. Tom has always been thankful (albeit a wary at first but none the less thankful) to be adopted and slowly had come to care for his adoptive father and his sister but utter respect was hard to achieve from the youngest Evans. "You've never aged. You still look as though you're in the last years of your adolescence."

"Personally, I would tell him to eat his vegetables but he already does that," Death muses, speaking for the first time since this conversation was started, and the only sign of acknowledgement Harry gives to having heard his second shadow is not-quite slamming the plate down on the kitchen table but as close to slamming something down one can get without slamming it.

Tom's eyebrow was raised at his father's actions. That wasn't the reaction he was suspecting.

"Tom it's time for a talk," Harry announces as he put some of the cooled down chocolate chip cookies on the plate.

Immediately Tom stiffens. "Father, I know the birds and bees. Merlin's pants do not change the subject to talk about something that quite frankly I'm not interested in," Tom did a rather good impression of a Nundu snarling before he wrinkled his noise at the thought. It wasn't as though sex was a mortifying thing but rather Tom had no interest in such a thing and honestly the subject beforehand was so much more important.

Harry squinted despite having his glasses on. "No," he muttered out. No. Just no. Not having that conversation with Tom was something Harry could most certainly agree on with his adopted son.

Merlin how had this become his life? Oh that's right. He decided to adopt a kid that would become the mass murderer who had killed his parents and Harry had killed in the original timeline. Harry needed help. He seemed to have lost his sanity after that second Avada Kedavra along with the parseltongue; lovely. Absolutely lovely.

"Tom do you know what immortality is," Harry asked. He stopped putting cookies on the plate to stare at his son, face more solemn then Tom had ever seen it. If Tom was any less of a proud wizard that he was he would have shifted in his robes at how unnerving it was at seeing his father like this.

"To live forever," Tom admitted softly. "To not be ordinary and weak." And at that confession Tom looked up at the man who raised him and despite the years that had gone by had yet to age a day since he arrived at Wool's Orphanage and adopted Tom.

Harry gives him a smile; the smile an adult gives to a child when they know something the adolescent doesn't. The smile an immortal gives when a mortal thinks what he is a gift. Something to yearn for instead of curse (for that was what it was) and avoid like one would the plague.

Something that would make Harry lose another son and out of Tom's ashes Lord Voldemort would be born.

There it was again. Tom felt the urge to shift at the smile Harry gave. But then the smile was gone (thankfully, not that Tom would ever admit so).

"Haven't you figured out what it means to be immortal? Immortality isn't living forever as it is to be alone. All die. Some slowly. Some are just gone because death can be unexpected and quick. You outlive you're children. You get to watch them be put in a coffin before they're lowered into their grave and you'll never see his scarless corpse ever again. Soon you know it will be the friends - who were you're family to you - be put in coffin next. You're alone and it feels like you're dying inside even though you can't. Death is your companion even though you shall never know it personally."

Harry stopped. Not just talking but froze and Tom, slowly, placed a hand on his father's hand.

"Then you won't be alone. I won't leave you and you won't leave me."

For some odd reason that seemed to upset his father more. Harry pulled his hand away to run it through his hair as he let out a sigh.

"Go take the plate to Ariana's room and you can share the cookies with her. Make sure LL doesn't get a hold of any." If that wasn't a dismissal then Tom was an idiot.

And that was that. Nothing more was said as Tom, a frown on his face, left the kitchen to share cookies with Ariana.


End file.
